San Jose, California, November 14 , 2014 - Polaris Networks, a leading global provider of LTE EPC-in-a-box solution and Functionality & Load testing tools for LTE, and Smith Micro Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:SMSI), a leading provider of wireless and mobility solutions, today announced the successful completion of Interoperability Testing (IOT) of ANDSF Server in Polaris EPC software and the ANDSF reference client available in Smith Micro’s NetWise I/O™ toolkit. This IOT exercise demonstrates how solutions from the two companies can be used to build seamless interoperability between LTE and WiFi networks.

The Access Network Discovery Selection Function, or ANDSF, is a feature defined by the 3GPP to assist user devices in discovering and selecting non-3GPP access networks, WiFi or WiMAX, based on policies that are dynamically controlled and defined by operators of 3GPP defined LTE networks. Polaris has implemented the ANDSF Server in its EPC software. The ANDSF server is available from Polaris in its EPC Emulators product to test ANDSF client applications or ANDSF behavior in the lab. Polaris also provides the ANDSF Server in its NetEPC product, that includes complete core network functions viz., MME, HSS, SGW, PGW, PCRF, OCS, OFCS, and supports features for WLAN offload to operators who want to deploy LTE networks for delivering commercial services, public safety services or for private networks in Enterprises, Industries and Defense.

Smith Micro’s NetWise I/O Toolkit provides a reference ANDSF client that assists user devices in selecting the best available network and enforces custom policies defined by operators based on various parameters like time-of-day, location, pre-defined priorities, QoS, etc. Cable and mobile operators can decongest their cellular networks by offloading traffic to Wi-Fi networks based on real-time device and network information provided by the NetWise ANDF client.

Polaris and Smith Micro engaged in an extensive testing exercise that included a series of functional tests to verify interoperability of the ANDSF server and ANDSF client.

“With users increasingly choosing Wi-Fi first, operators can’t afford to ignore user experience across heterogeneous networks, which ANDSF can help to improve,” said Brian Deeley, Senior Director of Product Management at Smith Micro Software. “Our heritage in wireless connectivity, policy on device, and industry standards allows us to support and extend ANDSF to enable very advanced traffic management. We are pleased to work with Polaris Networks to offer the benefits of intelligent policy management to operators through standards-based, interoperable solutions.”

"The demand for mobile traffic that has been forecasted by analysts would surpass the capacities of networks that are planned to be deployed by operators in the next few years. Network operators have to increasingly rely on distributing the traffic across multiple RATs," said Aditya Saraf, VP - Sales & Marketing, Polaris Networks. "The proven interoperability between Polaris and Smith Micro solutions allows operators to use sub-systems from each company to deploy an integrated system for ANDSF that can manage the traffic in heterogeneous networks, without comprising the QoS."